1- What is Hawthorne Studies:

1- Organization Theory:

A macro approach to organizations that analyzes the whole organization as a unit. It provides to interpret and understand the organization around you. It focuses not on individual people but the organization itself.

1-Formalization:

1- Specialization (division of labor)

is the degree to which organizational tasks are subdivided into separate jobs. If high is each employee performs only a narrow range of tasks. If low employees perform a wide range of tasks in their jobs.

2- Role of top management in setting organizational direction

2- How might a company's goals for employee development be related to its goals for innovation and change? To goals for productivity? Can you discuss ways these types of goals might conflict in an organization?

Employee development help to maintain a motivated, trained and committed workforce so that they are able to respond to innovation and change and able to produce goods and services. Some goals may initially cause a decrease in profit and employee development can be costly.

2-Similarities and differences in the strategies described in Porter's competitive strategies and Miles and Snow's typology.

These both have strong capability in research, both have learning orientation, both have efficiency orientation; centralized authority and tight cost control, little employee empowerment, Close supervision

2- Goal approach

2-What are the advantages and disadvantages of the goal approach

An advantage is that the approach is used in business organizations because output goals can be readily measured.

A disadvantage is that identifying operative goals and measuring performance of an organization are not always easy. Also, multiple goals and subjective indicators of goal attainment are a problem because organizations have multiple and conflicting goals and effectiveness often cannot be assessed by a single indicator. The other issue to resolve with the goal approach is how to identify operative goals for an organization and how to measure goal attainment

3- Product Matrix

3- Virtual team:

Dispersed members who are linked through
advanced information and communications technologies. Members frequently use the Internet and collaborative software to work together, rather than meeting face-to-face

3- Primary differences between a traditional organization designed for efficiency and a more contemporary organization designed for learning?

3- What is the difference between a tall hierarchy and a flat hierarchy

A tall structure of organization is more hierarchical, with more levels of management. It is a more complicated system of communication, more risk that communication becomes garbled as it moves through the levels, and more time is needed to implement decisions. (Levels are important)

A flat structure has very few different levels of management, but more people in each level. It enables the organization to take action more quickly.

3- What conditions usually have to be present before an organization should adopt a matrix structure?

3- Why do companies using horizontal structures have cultures that emphases openness, employee empowerment, and responsibility?

These structures are achieved through cross-functional information sharing, direct contact, task forces, full time integrators and teams. They overcome barriers between departments and provide options for coordination among employees to achieve unity of effort and organizational effectiveness.

3- How is structure related to the organizations need for efficiency verus its need for learning and innovation

Structure is related to the organizations need for efficiency because it makes the operations very predictable and easy to control (manufacturing) versus learning and innovation which maximizes the use of collective intelligence for attaining its vision and goals (research organizations)

3- Difference between Hierarchical/Horizontal Structures

High structures have many levels of management and formal reporting processes (slow communication/ decision making). Horizontal organizations have few levels of management and less formal reporting prcoesses (quick decision making/fast communication)

4- Organizational environment.

4- Task environment

Is usually the environment that most organizations like to focus on. Helpful to the organization because it helps them to specifically identify environmental factors that are important in the company's success.

4- What are some forces that influence environmental uncertainty? Which typically has the greatest impact on uncertainty-environmental complexity or environmental change? Why

4- Describe differentiation and integration.

_____________is "the differences in cognitive and emotional orientations among managers in different functional departments, and the difference in formal structure among these departments. _____________ is the quality of collaboration among departments. When the environment is highly uncertain, frequent changes require more information processing to achieve horizontal coordination, so integrators become a necessary addition to the organization structure.

4-How does the environment influence organic and mechanistic structures

As environmental uncertainty increases, organizations tend to become more organic, which means decentralizing authority and responsibility to lower levels, encouraging employees to take care of problems by working directly with one another, encouraging teamwork, and taking an informal approach to assigning tasks and responsibility. Thus, the organization is more fluid and is able to adapt continually to changes in the external environment.

4- Assume you have been asked to calculate the ratio of staff employees to production employees in two organizations-one in a simple, stable environment and one in a complex shifting environment. How would you expect these ratios to differ? Why?

In organizations characterized by very simple, stable environments, almost no managers are assigned to integration roles and as environmental uncertainty increases, so does differentiation among departments; hence, the organization must assign a larger percentage of managers to coordinating roles

Stable vs. unstable dimenstion

Refers to whether elements in the environment are dynamic. An environmental domain is stable if it remains the same over a period of months or years. Under unstable conditions, environmental elements shift abruptly

5- Partnership relationship

5- Population-ecology perspective

Companies must continue to change or the will be replaced by new companies and the environment is important in organizational success or failure so they must meet an environmental need, or it will be selected out.

5- The concept of business ecosystems implies that organizations are more interdependent than ever before. From personal experience, do you agree? Explain.

5- Discuss how the adversarial versus partnership orientations work among students in class. Is there a sense of competition for grades? Is it possible to develop true partnerships in which your work depends on others?

All working to graduate at the top of our class and get the best job (Adversaries) but we work as partners on group class projects. No true partnership among students.

7- Socio-technical systems approach:

7- Interdependence

7- High and low Interdependence

Low interdependence means that departments can do their work independently of each other and have little need for interaction, consultation, or exchange of materials. High interdependence means departments must constantly exchange resources

7- Where would your university or college department be located on Perrow's technology framework? Look for the underlying variety and analyzability characteristics when making your assessment. Would a department devoted exclusively to teaching be put in a different quadrant from a department devoted exclusively to research?

Within the framework my university would be non-routine and have high task variety, and have low analyzable. Both have high task variety because encounter a large number of unexpected situations, with frequent problems and both have low analyzability.

7- Describe Woodward's classification of organizational technologies.

7- Technical complexity?

Represents the extent of mechanization of the manufacturing process. High technical complexity means most of the work is performed by machines. Low technical complexity means workers play a larger role in the production process.

Sociotechnical systems model combining technical and people components, and making decisions about how one impacts the other. Because they understand that designing an organization to meet human needs while ignoring the technical systems, or changing technology to improve efficiency while ignoring human needs, may inadvertently cause performance problems.

7- Routine tasks versus non-routine tasks

_____________are characterized by little task variety and the use of objective, computational procedures. The tasks are formalized and standardized. Examples include an automobile assembly line and a bank teller department

_________________ technologies have high task variety, and the conversion process is not analyzable. A great deal of effort is devoted to analyzing problems and activities. Experience and technical knowledge are used to solve problems and perform the work. Basic research, strategic planning, and other work that involves new projects and unexpected problems are examples. (Project Manager)

7- Low task variaty versus high task variaty

Low Task Variaty- When there are few problems, and when day-to-day job requirements are repetitious, technology contains little variety. (Note: technologies low in variety tend to be analyzable). (Fastfood)

High Task Variarty- When individuals encounter a large number of unexpected situations, with frequent problems, variety is considered high. (Note: technologies high in variety tend to be low in analyzability)

7- Analyzability and low analyzability

Analyzable - the work can be reduced to mechanical steps and participants can follow an objective, computational procedure to solve problems. Solution may involve the use of standard procedures, such as instructions and manuals, or technical knowledge.

Low analyzable -When problems arise, it is difficult to identify the correct solution. There is no store of techniques or procedures to tell a person exactly what to do. The cause of or solution to a problem is not clear, so employees rely on accumulated experience, intuition, and judgment.

8- Executive Information Systems:

8- Knowledge management:

The efforts to systematically find, organize, and make available a company's intellectual capital and to foster a culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing so that organizational activities build on existing knowledge

8- Management control systems :

Are formal routines, reports, and procedures that use information to maintain or alter patterns in organization activities. In this system Targets are set in advance and outcomes are compared to targets, and variance reported to managers for corrective action.

8- Tacit knowledge :

8- Extranet

A private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers or other businesses. Can be viewed as part of a company's intranet that is extended to users outside the company.

8- Enterprise resource planning system

8- Describe how the four management control system elements discussed in the chapter might be used for feedback control within organizations. Compare and contrast this four-part system with use of the balanced scorecard

The four elements are (all help provide managers with a balanced view):

• Budget and financial reports : typically used to set targets for the organization's expenditures for the year and then report actual costs on a monthly or quarterly basis.

• Periodic nonfinancial statistical reports: Used to evaluate and monitor nonfinancial performance, such as customer satisfaction, employee performance, or rate of staff turnover.

• Reward systems: offer incentives for managers and employees to improve performance and meet departmental goals. Evaluate how well previous goals were met, set new goals, and establish rewards for meeting the new targets.

• Quality-control systems : Used to train employees in quality-control methods, set targets for employee participation, establish benchmarking guidelines, and assign and measure Six Sigma goals

8- Describe your use of explicit knowledge when you research and write a term paper. Do you also use tacit knowledge regarding this activity? Discuss

When writing a term paper, I use explicit knowledge when I preform research for my paper because explicit knowledge is the formal, systematic knowledge that written down, and passed on to others. It is the information that I read in order to form an opinion about my paper.

Yes. You do use some form of tacit knowledge when writing because it is based on personal experience, rules of thumb, intuition, and judgment. You incorporate what you already know into the paper.

8- Why is knowledge management particularly important to a company that wants to become a learning organization?

8- What is meant by the integrated enterprise? Describe how organizations can use extranets to extend and enhance horizontal relationships required for enterprise integration

Is an organization that uses advanced IT to enable close coordination within the company as well as with suppliers, customers, and partners.

Extranets can be used because the allow an organization to system to securely share part of a business's information or operations (via intranet) with suppliers or other businesses. This allow the company and the supplier to establish a horizontal relationship thus enhancing their relationship.

9- How might the adoption of IT affect how an organization is designed

9- Bureaucracy:

Org framework marked by rules and procedures, specialization and division of labor, hierarchy of authority, technically qualified personnel, separate position and incumbent, and written communications and records

9- Clan control:

Use of social characteristics, such as corporate culture, shared values, commitment, traditions, and beliefs, to control behavior. Require shared values and trust among employees, important when ambiguity and uncertainty is high

9- Organizational decline:

9- Discribe the three bases of authority identified by Weber. Is it possible for each of these types of authority to function at the same time within an organization?

• Weber theory states that in order in order to make bureaucratic control work managers must have the authority to maintain control over the organization. It is possible for an organization to have all three. The Office of the President of the United States is an example.

• Rational-Legal Authority: Is based on employee's belief in the legality of rules and the right of those elevated to the position of authority to issue commands.

• Traditional Authority: Is the belief in tradition and in the legitimacy of the status of people exercising authority through those traditions.

• Charismatic Authority: Is based in the devotion to the exemplary character or to the heroism of an individual person and the order defined by him or her.

9- In writing about the types of control, William Ouchi said, the market is like the trout and the Clan like the salmon, each a beautiful highly specialized species, which requires uncommon conditions for its survival. In comparison, the bureaucratic method of control is the catfish-clumsy, ugly, but able to live in the widest range of environments and ultimately, the dominant species. Discuss what Ouchi meant with that analogy.

The analogy for this shows that the Clan and the market are both able to function efficiently in condition that are highly uncertain. Under these conditions, both are able to survive and rebound if the organization pays close attention to their underlying needs. They are free flowing and adaptable. On the other hand, bureaucratic method of control uses rules and standardization in order to survive. It is not free flowing and is high mechanized although; this standardization does allow it to survive even if it lacks the ability to change.

9- Market control :

9- Government organizations seem to be more bureaucratic than non-profit organizations. Could this partly be the result of the type of control used by government organizations?

Government organizations are based on the written rules and standardization found within the bureaucratic method. They are highly mechanistic in matures whereas non-profits are based more in the clan control method because they are based in, shared values, commitments. They are more organic in mature.

9-The incident command system has been used primarily by organizations that regularly deal with crises. Discuss whether this approach seems workable for a large media company that wants to reduce bureaucratic. How about for a manufacture of cell phones.

• Incident command system: developed to maintain the efficiency and control benefits of bureaucracy yet prevent the problems of slow response to crises. It allows organizations to glide smoothly between a highly formalized hierarchical structure that is effective during times so stability and a more flexible loosely structured one needed to respond well to unexpected/demanding environmental conditions.

• This approach seems workable because it allows the organization to maintain the same efficiency and control found within the bureaucracy control system but avoid the problem of slow response to crises.

How do you know if an organization preformed well in an uncertain enviorment ( according to Differentiation & Intergration)

Organizations that performed well in uncertain environments had high levels of both differentiation and integration, while those performing well in less uncertain environments had lower levels of differentiation and integration.